Featured Articles

by The Editor

Chennai Metro Rail, the City’s pride, has railway stations far from perfect. Let us make it quite clear at the outset – we are delighted that the city has a metro rail service in operation, albeit a mere fraction of what ought to have been running by now. Those who use the facility profess to […]

by A Special Correspondent

Take the case of Malligai Poo Nagar on the banks of the Adyar River near Meenambakkam. Residents have been complaining about dumping of garbage along the bank. The settlement does not have the luxury of municipal garbage collection service. The spot has become a dump yard and breeding ground for diseases. Their community toilet was […]

If you happen to pass by the General Hospital in Park Town, you cannot resist the temptation to halt for a while to study an imposing statue near the main entrance. The engraved marble below reads: Dr. S. RANGACHARI m.b. & c.s. Surgeon and Physician In memory of his rare medical skill and boundless humanity […]

Painting Walls My first ever introduction to the famed Stella Maris College was sometime during my childhood – mostly as a result of my mother being a former student. My fascination for this college, established on 15 August 1947 and managed by the Society of the Franciscan missionaries of Mary, remained with me all through […]

– SRIRAM V

by Indu Balachandran

Illustration: Ahmed Sikander. The most thrilling part of an NRI relative returning home are the phoren gifts – Jus’ Heat n Eat Palak Paneer from the Jersey Indian store and the three-minute noisy beetroot cold-press juicer that takes about 30 minutes to clean. The annual invasion of my relatives from the US has begun. They […]

- by Chithra Madhavan

Of Pallava and Chalukya sculpture Ganesa, Eastern Chalukya dynasty.Vishnu, Pallava era. Among the numerous monuments and sculptures found in various parts of Tamil Nadu, those belonging to the Pallava dynasty are perhaps the best known to those living in Chennai. This is because of the close proximity to the major centres of Pallava power such […]

- S.R. Madhu

What will English be 100 years hence? This article by Simon Horobin, Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University, was written three years ago, but it’s about English a hundred years from now, so the piece is still valid! – S.R. Madhu One way of predicting the future is to look back at […]

- Vijaysree Venkatraman

Earlier this year, a short New York Times article declared, “Tiffins are the stacked boxes with a carrying handle used in India mostly for delivered lunches or snacks, though the word can also mean the food itself.” That is not how we define the word “tiffin” in southern India, do we? The flat, or stacked […]